Manager brings history of success to Ottawa
Steve Brook's passion for baseball goes beyond the paycheque.
Introduced to media on a Wednesday Zoom call as the first manager of Ottawa's (yet to be named) professional baseball team, which will play its first season in the Frontier League in 2021, the 39-year-old Brook talked about his love for the game he's played and coached professionally since 2004.
“Ultimately, I'd love to be in the big leagues, but I don't play that way. I play for the opportunity right now,” Brook said. “I may never get (to Major League Baseball) and that's OK. I'm just going to treat the Frontier League like it's my big league and try to win a championship. I love the game of baseball, I'm not doing it for the experience of trying to see Canada — though that's a nice perk. My family keeps me going. My wife probably loves baseball and what I do even more than I do — that's hard to find.”
Brook is one of the most accomplished managers in Frontier League history, compiling a 542-415 (.566) record with the River City Rascals from 2010
19. Brook won Frontier League championships in 2010 and 2019.
“The Rascals went through a lot of struggles to stay afloat,” Brook said. “The ownership really tried, but they got to a point where they got under water and never really found their way back. We got tremendous support locally. I don't want to say it was mismanagement, but decisions could have been made that would have helped us better financially. We folded in a championship season; I don't know if that's ever happened in the history of professional baseball.”
Brook is a high school phys-ed teacher in St. Peters, Mo., in the off-season, living with his wife Ellen and their two children, Nolan and Caitlin.
Said Brook: “The question for me became, `What's next?' There were clubs that offered me managerial jobs for the 2020 season. I didn't feel comfortable taking either of those positions that were offered to me. I ended up taking the pitching coach job with Gateway, just across the river, because it was local for me. I would have done that in 2020, but COVID happened, so here we are. I got a call a few weeks ago asking if I was interested in the Ottawa opening. I got hired about a week ago and I'm pretty excited to get going.”
When he comes to Ottawa, it'll be only his second visit to Canada. About 20 years ago, he spent a night in Windsor at a college New Year's Eve party. Brook is looking forward to heading north again.
“This is really a rebirth for me,” he said. “I've had such a long career in the Frontier League. Being able to join in with an organization like Ottawa which has never been in the Frontier League, but has a rich tradition in baseball, is really exciting to me and to my family.
“We've really had a weird and long off-season. It's still October and we have a significant amount of time left before we get started in May. The time will go fast and hopefully this whole COVID situation will get out of here so we can get back to a more normal life, doing what we love to do.
I'm excited to see what happens at the stadium (in Ottawa) and what happens with the team. I want to bring the mindset I brought to River City — have confident players, guys who are hungry and who play the game hard — and hopefully have some success up there.”
If the 2021 season goes ahead as planned, Brook will manage his 1,000th game — a lot for a guy who'll turn 40 in late February. And, he's not against taking the mound again. Brook pitched four seasons for the Rascals from 2004-07, twice voted a Frontier League all-star.
“I still throw the ball,” he said. “If we need a veteran arm at some point in the season, I'm not opposed to activating myself and throwing. I haven't actually thrown in a game since 2007, but
I still throw all the time. I feel like I could put in the work and do it if I really needed to. You go on a nine-game road trip, a player gets hurt and you need a pitcher — you never know, I could maybe give an inning to try and help us out.”
“I was never a velocity guy. I'm probably in the upper 70s, low 80s with a lot of movement and deception. I'm going to throw strikes and hope for the best.
It's not always about velocity, I know that's the magic number everybody looks for. We'll have pitchers who will throw 93-95 this year, but having success on the mound is about more than that.”
Brook will be in charge of putting together a roster. He figures his Frontier League connections and the relationships he's built over the years will help in the recruitment.
The team will take 38 players into a spring training, then cut down to a 24-man roster by opening day next May.